NCJ Number
190505
Journal
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism Volume: 24 Issue: 4 Dated: July/August 2001 Pages: 271-288
Date Published
2001
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This article examines the role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Abstract
Before the economic crisis of 1997, it was advocated that ASEAN was at the center of a shift in the global order toward a Pacific Century premised on the Association’s practices of multilateral cooperation, dialogue, consensus, and non-interference. The difficulty in evaluating ASEAN and its contribution to regional security is that the economic development of Pacific Asia occurred in a regional environment largely untroubled by major inter-state conflict between 1975 and 1997. The economic crisis of 1997 exposed ASEAN’s incoherence as an imitation community. ASEAN proved unable to contend with the pressures exerted by the global information age or the violent internal challenges posed by the threat of inter-ethnic strife and the new terror. As a result, ASEAN cannot act in unison in either the economic, security, or cultural fields. Each state in Southeast Asia is compelled to respond individually to the challenges of globalization. They can retreat into some version of identity politics and get left behind. Or, they can adapt to the information technology age with all the unsettling possibilities that has for established authoritarian regimes. The global processes that are pulling Southeast Asia in different directions induce massive dissonance among ASEAN’s members. ASEAN faces a credibility problem and it may have seen its best years. 78 notes